New Shoes in the Rain

Greetings from RAINY Lexington!  You read that correctly, it's RAINING here!  So happy to finally get rain, and I mean that for the farmers in the region and the homeowners who like to have a lawn surrounding their homes! Speaking of homes, the title of this post could be used to infer the logical way that one would build a home--brick by brick.  But I have something else in mind for that phrase. Regardless of your political leanings, it's fair to say that most people who've paid some attention to the House Select Committee investigating the events of and leading up to January 6, 2021 have constructed a compelling narrative about those events and various people's involvement in them.  But it's also crystal clear that the intent of this well-structured series of presentations was to fully illustrate that former President Trump was at the center of all of these activities. Full disclosure--I was never a supporter of the former President, but recognized his and his cam...

Good afternoon to you....hope it's not too hot where you are. I'm kidding, of course.  Most of modern civilization is suffering from a major heat wave (or heat DOME, as weather people on television have christened this).  Our power is on and the A/C is working, so we're OK for now. For all of you keeping score, and I bet there are a few, yesterday was my 62nd birthday.  Which means I need to change my profile, among other things.  And I took the day off work, which I don't always do. Last year I saw my cardiologist on my birthday, which was quite a source of amusement when he noticed on my chart that it was my birthday.  This year I was scheduled for a haircut but was contacted by my barbershop last week with news that my barber is on three months (!) of jury duty.  So the haircut happened on Monday. So I suggested an early morning round of golf to a friend and we played yesterday morning.  Unfortunately, it began to get warmer early into the back nine...

Happy Monday, everyone.  I'm glad to report that central Kentucky finally is receiving some meaningful rainfall yesterday and today.  My lawn is especially happy about this. I've been collecting some thoughts over the past week or so about people whom I genuinely admire.  I may have positive thoughts about certain people (most of them famous in politics, business, entertainment, sports or other walks of life) but there are not as many for whom I have real admiration.  So allow me to share some of them, and why they have earned my admiration. Let's start with superstar chef and founder of World Central Kitchen Jose Andres.  I've mentioned him before, but I continue to be absolutely floored with the magnitude of this undertaking and how they always seem to be at every location of overwhelming need.  That includes natural disasters, such as the 2010 earthquake in Haiti (which was the first time I had heard of him or WCK), the humanitarian crisis caused by Hurr...

Happy weekend-after-a-Monday-holiday, everyone!  I don't know about you, but this week has felt like it was WEEKs long. It's been a hectic and interesting week here in central Kentucky.  I believe I mentioned in this space some time ago that we were trying to do some long-overdue projects to our house, as we weighed out the prospect of selling and then moving to another home, but ultimately opted to improve our current home here. We like the location and what's nearby and have lived in this house since 1996, so the prospect of packing up and moving was not that appealing! Anyway, we started down this path last year, armed with a good tax refund and some stimulus money that we socked away.  Last summer we had a fence replaced and also had our gutters and downspouts replaced.  And we planned to have our driveway and front walk torn out and redone, and even agreed to have it done by a contractor who never responded after we sent him the signed quote.  So we opted i...